Sunday, January 22, 2017

Turn It On: My Look At The Excellent New Live Album From Sleater-Kinney On Sub Pop

I am attempting to review a new Sleater-Kinney release with the disappointment still fresh in my mind that I wasn't able to buy tickets to see the band when they were in D.C. this weekend for the Women's March. My disappointment is, of course, silly since I'm happy that this perennially-excellent band were here in this town to support such an important cause. That they are about to release an absolutely fiery live album -- their first, actually -- is another reason to be happy.

Live in Paris from Sleater-Kinney drops on Sub Pop on Friday. Recorded on a recent tour for their "comeback" album (the amazing No Cities To Love), the record is a deft updating of that very Seventies live album idea. In an era when it seems as if live albums are not quite as necessary as they once were, Live in Paris sort of upends that theory, reminding even casual fans what a magnificent back-catalog this crew has got, and what great players they are in a concert setting.

A blazing "Price Tag" segues into a rhythmic run at "Oh" from 2002's excellent One Beat. Elsewhere, No Cities Left To Love standout "A New Wave" here takes on a vibe reminiscent of early, punk-y Pretenders, or even Gang of Four standards. A raging "No Cities to Love" pleases the clearly appreciative audience in Paris, while "I Wanna Be Your Joey Ramone" -- one of the first songs I ever heard from this trio and the one that made me an instant fan -- roars with riot grrl intent, its fire actually stoked up a bit in the ensuing 21 (!) years since its first release. "Turn It On" remains the band's rallying cry, Janet Weiss absolutely destroying it on the kit on this one, while "Dig Me Out" is pure punk, and a blast of both energy and hard melody. Live in Paris closes with an absolutely stunning stab at "Modern Girl" from 2005's The Woods.

Live in Paris is pure energy barely contained and one cannot help but marvel at how Corin Tucker, Carrie Brownstein, and Janet Weiss have maintained the fire and drive for more than two decades. A crash course into one of the most essential back-catalogs in American indie, Live in Paris from Sleater-Kinney is one of this week's best new releases. Old fans will surely embrace this as much as I did, while new(er) fans will find it a usual and masterful primer on the tuneful anarcho-uplift of Sleater-Kinney.

Out Friday on Sub Pop, Live in Paris by Sleater-Kinney is available on a variety of formats from the seminal label. More details on Sleater-Kinney via the band's official website.

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About Me

I write about stuff I like.
Born in Washington, D.C., in 1967, I spent most of my life in Maryland before I moved to Hong Kong at the very end of 2011. I worked in Kowloon, and lived on Lamma Island, for nearly 3 years, and then I moved back to Maryland with my wife at the end of August 2014. When I was younger, I worked in 3 record stores in College Park, Maryland, from 1987 to 1990 and those jobs gave me a lot of joy, as well as a musical education. I was once a huge fan of the cinema of Hong Kong, especially Shaw Brothers titles. An Anglophile, I still gravitate to British films and music. My youth was spent on Marvel comics, and Starlog and Famous Monsters magazines; Universal and Hammer horror movies; the work of Ray Harryhausen; classic American films of the 1930s; Hanna-Barbera cartoons; music from the glory days of American AM radio; lousy TV reruns; Mego toys; and Godzilla flicks...